Girls Can Do Anything Inspirational Women - Jane Goodall
Jane Goodall (UK)
Ethlogist, Anthropologist, Un Messenger of Peace
As a child, I was very interested in wildlife conservation and, in fact, went on to study it at university. I was an avid watcher of Planet Earth and other nature programmes and wanted to be David Attenborough - or someone like him. There were two other people who came close in my esteem to Sir David. One was Joy Adamson, the naturalist and film-maker who raised a lion cub at her home in Kenya, and the other was Jane Goodall.
Growing up, I had very few female role models, but Jane Goodall was one of them. She is a primatologist who spent years of her life studying chimpanzees in Gombe Stream National park in Tanzania and went on to become an advocate for non-human rights and a UN messenger of peace.
She discovered that animals can have personalities, a notion that has informed the animals rights movement across the globe. She showed that not only could chimpanzees demonstrate affection, they were also ruthless hunters and inventive users of tools.
I chose Jane Goodall to feature in the Girls Can Do Anything gallery of inspirational women, because she dedicated her life to the thing she loved most and, more importantly, shared her knowledge and experience with ordinary people across the world. In doing so, her work has helped us to understand, appreciate and care for one of the most fascinating species on our planet.
Girls Can Do Anything is illustrated by Ali Pye and published on 2 August 2018 by Scholastic. Pre-order your copy here.